- Actor Marius Manole and stand-up comedian Costel answered the children’s challenge to perform their art using only a few words
- Autism Voice needs 50,000 text messages in order to offer free therapy for the autistic children from their centers
Autism Voice, an NGO committed to recover autistic children and training ABA specialists, is launching ”The Word that brings more Words”, their first SMS fundraising campaign. This initiative plans to reach 50,000 text messages per month in order to cover therapy costs for the 200 children from their 2 centers.
In this campaign, many artists have accepted the challenge set by autistic children and looked for a way to perform their art using only the 3 simple words that children on the spectrum take a long time (months or even years) to learn. So far, Marius Manole has answered 5-year-old Dani’s challenge to do a play using the words “give me car” and “bunny”, and stand-up comedian Costel has answered 7-year-old David’s challenge to make a joke with “red” and “help”.
“It’s enough to stop for a moment and imagine a world in which a parent is fighting to save his kid, to help him speak, so that the child can talk about his pain, his need to play and go to the kindergarten. In a normal world these are simple things, any kid can do that. But this reality dramatically changes when it comes to an autistic child. <<Donate VOICE>> campaign is the next step after our organization’s rebranding process, which started this spring. Our purpose is to help children with autism spectrum disorder to break the communication barriers between them and all those around them. It is an audacious project, but we want every child with autism to have a future and a chance to recover. We also want every parent in this situation to stop fearing tomorrow”, said Anca Dumitrescu, president of Autism Voice.
The campaign started mid-October and its first phase will end in December. Musicians, poets and content creators will also answer the children’s challenges. Thus, the campaign sets to reach a high number of people who would donate EUR 2 by sending the word VOICE to 8844.
The campaign’s media partners are Radio Itsy Bitsy, Radio București FM, Q Magazine, Baby Boom and Baby Expo.
About Autism Voice
Autism Voice was established in 2008. It is the first association specialized in recovering children with autism spectrum, having introduced the possibility for specialists to receive ABA training. It is the only Romanian institution that offers continuous training, certified by the BACB (Behavior Analyst Certification Board).
Autism Voice has two therapy centers where ABA has been used to help children with autism spectrum disorders. Alternatively, the association and its partners organize the only ABA International Conference in Bucharest, an event that has been credited at national and international level since 2010. Autism Voice also puts together events and workshops in its field.